When marriage was more common, having multiple close social / family ties was also more common.
Modern marriage makes you concentrate all that emotional energy on one person. It’s a lot.
The Never Married, a New Normal
101–110 of 450 posts
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having known unhappily married and religious family (and leaving the faith myself), I can understand folks falling permanently out of love. And IMO they're likely better apart than locked in decades of fruitless trying. Anyway, thanks for sharing, and I'd agree that a frivolous marriage sounds like a pointless exercise.
Falling in or out of love is really a lot of fantasy BS though really. Disney marketing. Anyone in a long term relationship doesn’t love the other all the time, wether married or not. Marriage is about declaring to your social group and each other you’ve decided to strive and commit to something greater than yourself.
> Marriage is about declaring to your social group and each other you’ve decided to strive and commit to something greater than yourself.
I think most people can accept this belief while still thinking that there ought to be an out for two people who find themselves deeply unhappy together for a long period of time. Committing to something should very rarely be an absolute thing, and most people (even those who accept and respect marriage as a social institution) don't think that marriage should be one of those things. That's compatible with thinking (as you say in your OP) that most romantic relationships are shallow and not ultimately very meaningful, and wanting something more.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#103In the Netherlands, there is virtually no societal difference between people that are in a long-term relationship and live together, and married people. To the point that people call themselves husband and wife if they technically 'just' live together. My German girlfriend was shocked to learn this, in other countries (and cultures) marriage really is more of a 'thing'.
In the US that would be called a common law marriage and basically ends up creating a marriage that is recognized by the law (for good or ill). Basically if you say you're married, then you're married. I assume the American tradition comes from English common law because of the name, but I doubt it's unique to those societies.
> Basically if you say you're married, then you're married.
I just wanted to note that, depending on the state, the corollary can also apply; If you say you're not married, then you're not married. The more witnesses of both parties clearly stating this, the better.
I'm referring to states where common-law marriage potentially kicks in just by living together long enough.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#104The current legal institution of marriage is also not a great option for anyone who is polyamorous, which is gradually becoming more widely accepted and acknowledged. The law only recognizes one pairing, meaning you have to decide which one of your partners gets very literal special extra rights. Picking which of your partners gets guaranteed visitation rights and immunity to compelled testimony against you is incredibly unfair, so the answer for many people ends up being none of them.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#105I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…
I can sacrifice my ego through meditation and acts of charity/volunteer work. No need to risk half of my current assets and future income on the whims of some potentially capricious other person, who probably doesn't like me very much anyways. Good luck to you, however.
> No need to risk half of my current assets and future income
Most people see being in a position of vulnerability with respect to another human being whom they trust as a wonderful thing, which gives them a great deal of every day happiness. You see this vulnerability as merely negative, a threat to your individualistic pursuit of wealth ("assets and income"). You have a right to live however you want, of course, but maybe consider the possibility that others are getting something valuable out of this that you've missed?
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Every week 2 hours at a local organization. There are other ways in which i give back to my family and my community, which i don't intend to discuss here. Further, on this point, i do not need to justify these to you or any internet stranger. Who are you to police others and their morality? I never said what gender i was or what gender i was interested in. I do know that i would probably earn a higher salary than my…
> …which i don't intend to discuss here. Further, on this point, i do not need to justify these to you or any internet stranger. Who are you to police others and their morality?
Pretty rich to come in so hot against something and then when questioned freak out like that.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#107I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…
Try putting "I'd like someone willing to sacrifice a lot of ego and choose to give up a lot of freedom and self" into Tinder and see how it goes. And as bad as the dating apps are, I never got the impression that people were evaluating each other on much more than superficial metrics in the old school dating world anyway.
In my experience, all dating is superficial in the beginning, and attempting to short-circuit that process never really works in the long run. You can't speedrun getting to know someone. This is why "dating milestones" are such a trope.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#108I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…
> living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.
This. And ultimately having kids with this person is another ego-exposing (and hopefully ego busting - but that's not guaranteed) exercise that contemporary societies gave up trying with varying excuses ranging "economical" to "climate saving" reasons.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
"My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married." Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage.
> Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage. Generally, where common law or informal marriage is recognized at all, it requires both shared intent to marry and publicly presenting as married. I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing.
"I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing."
New Hampshire: Common Law Marriage: "persons cohabiting and acknowledging each other as husband and wife, and generally reputed to be such, for the period of 3 years, and until the decease of one of them, shall thereafter be deemed to have been legally married." (N.H. Stat. §457:39)
So not really a fiction. There aren't many requirements there.
The old law in PA did not even require habitation or a contract. All that would be required aside from regular eligibility stuff would be presenting themselves in public as husband and wife plus exchanging words of intent at one time to be married (verbal contract). That law was active until as recently as 2005.
Re: The Never Married, a New Normal
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Every week 2 hours at a local organization. There are other ways in which i give back to my family and my community, which i don't intend to discuss here. Further, on this point, i do not need to justify these to you or any internet stranger. Who are you to police others and their morality? I never said what gender i was or what gender i was interested in. I do know that i would probably earn a higher salary than my…
Were you actually able to convince yourself with all that or no?